News from the Votemaster

The seesaw keeps going up and down.
Yesterday, Bush was ahead in Ohio and behind in Florida.
Today he is behind in Ohio and ahead in Florida.
A new Quinnipiac Univ. poll in
Florida
puts Bush a whisker ahead there, 45% to 43% among registered voters and
48% to 47% among Quinnipiac's idea of likely voters, both well within the margin of error.
A new Gallup poll in Ohio puts Kerry ahead there, 50% to 44 among registered
voters, but only ahead 48% to 47% among those people Gallup considers likely voters.
Given that the presidency is likely to be determined by a few thousand Florida and Ohio
voters, it is somehow hard to imagine that vast numbers of registered voters
in those two states are going to sit this one out though.
Iowa also switched today.
Bush has a 6% lead there according to Survey USA. If Kerry wins Minnesota and nothing
else changes, Bush wins the electoral college 271 to 267, same as in 2000.

One issue that has been totally absent from the campaign is the Supreme Court.
The median age of the justices is 68. No spring chickens here except for Clarence
Thomas, a mere stripling at 56. Here are the current justices.

Breyer

Ginsburg

Kennedy

O'Connor

Rehnquist

Scalia

Souter

Stevens

Thomas

Justice

Appointed by

Sworn in

Age

Stephen Breyer

Clinton

1994

66

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Clinton

1993

71

Anthony M. Kennedy

Reagan

1988

68

Sandra Day O'Connor

Reagan

1981

74

William H. Rehnquist

Nixon

1972

80

Antonin Scalia

Reagan

1986

68

David H. Souter

Bush

1990

65

John Paul Stevens

Ford

1975

84

Clarence Thomas

Bush

1991

56

It is very likely than multiple vacancies will occur on the Court in the next four
years. The court will undoubtedly have to rule on cases involving abortion, the Patriot
Act, and other divisive issues. If you are an undecided voter, think carefully about
which candidate would make better appointments to the Supreme Court.
Furthermore, a president makes far more appointment to the appellate courts than to
the Supreme Court, and they hear far more cases per year. If you approve
of the appointments Bush has made to the appellate courts, surely you want to give him
the chance to make more. If you don't approve, maybe somebody else should be doing the
appointing. The next president's appointments could shape the country for decades to come.
It is at least worth discussing. If you have a blog, this topic might even be worth blogging about.

A new
study
from the University of Maryland supports the thesis that Kerry and Bush supporters apparently live in
different universes, complete with different facts and probably different laws of physics.
Bush supporters believe it is a fact that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; Kerry
supporters don't. Bush supporters believe Saddam was supporting al Qaeda; Kerry supporters don't.
Bush supporters believe most people in other countries approve of the war in Iraq; Kerry supporters
don't. Read it for yourself.

Many Americans abroad have told me that they have tried and failed to get an emergency
write-in ballot from the U.S. embassy. The embassies don't seem to be very helpful. Other places to try
are the local branches of Democrats abroad and
Republicans abroad. They can probably help
and will certainly sympathize with you if you tell them that you want to vote for their guy.
An alternative is to download and print one yourself from
the FVAP website, but before doing that,
call your county clerk to ask if your state accepts them, what the rules are, and what the arrival deadline is.
Some states have extended the deadline and some even accept faxed ballots, but ask before trying it.

When I pointed out that Bush's
hometown paper
had endorsed Kerry, I said that if
Kerry's hometown paper endorsed Bush I would mention it. Well, true to my word, the
Boston Herald
has endorsed Bush.

The Predicted final map has now been enhanced
with a button you can depress and hold to see the current map. By alternately holding and releasing this
button, you can see the difference between the current map and the predicted one.
The predicted map is based on a model in which current Kerry and Bush voters don't switch sides, Nader gets 1% in
the states where he is on the ballot and 0% in the others, the minor parties get a total of 1%, and the undecideds
break 2:1 for the challenger, as they have been doing for 50 years.

Some statistically-sophisticated readers asked me to do a sensitivity analysis on how the undecideds break.
Fair enough. Suppose Kerry gets a fraction α of the undecideds and Bush gets 1 - α.
How does the final result depend on α? Here is the table

α

Kerry EVs

Bush EVs

0.667

294

244

0.650

294

244

0.625

267

244

0.600

257

244

0.550

257

244

0.500

257

271

What is happening here is that with a 2:1 break (α = 0.667),
Kerry wins 294 to 244.
At α = 0.625, Florida (where Bush now leads) becomes a tie
because not enough undecideds have gone for Kerry.
At α = 0.600 (a 3:2 break for Kerry), Minnesota also becomes a
tie. At α = 0.500, the undecideds split evenly and we get today's
result, Bush carries Florida and an exact tie in Minnesota.